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.The feathers rustle, her wings buffeting—or are they Bradwell’s birds? And is it dark because it’s night or because the air is filled with smoke?And there’s the voice in the dark air, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… Lyda counting in the darkened Domesticity Display, now full of smoke.But still he runs his finger down the blade.And Lyda says, “Twenty.”PRESSIAEARTHPRESSIA TRIES TO KEEP WATCH for a shift of landscape, an arching rise of dark dusty sand, funnels, ripples.The car is half hidden by the felled billboard.The keys are in the ignition.She still feels the effects of the ether, which makes her feel heavy.She dozes, then wakes with a start.She grips the gun tightly with her one good hand.She wonders if, because her sight and hearing are dimmer, her sense of smell is already keener.The scent of rot is part of the landscape.She thinks of the pale moist eggs from Ingership’s dinner, the oysters.She feels sick again and quickly closes her eyes to regain some sense of balance in her head.With her eyes shut, the image that appears in her head is of Bradwell and Partridge eating dinner at a large dining room table.Such things are possible now that she’s seen Ingership’s farmhouse, but not really, not ever, not for them.She imagines Bradwell’s face, his eyes, his mouth.He looks at her.He’s about to say something.She opens her eyes.It’s almost dawn.A hint of pale light is edging up in the east.She hears something hiss—the movement of sand? If a Dust appears, she’ll kill it.She has to.Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?In her cloudy vision, she sees a few bits of exploded tires, the skeleton of a delivery van rusting deep brown, and way off in the distance, when the wind dies for a moment and the ash settles, she sees the rumple where the horizon meets the gray skin of sky.Somewhere back there is the farmhouse, Ingership and his wife, her skin hidden in a stocking.She looks for El Capitan’s shape to emerge from the fallen cityscape behind her.Her doll-head fist, already blackened by ash, stares at her, expectantly, as if it needs something from her.She used to talk to it when she was little, and she was sure that the doll understood her.There’s no one here to see the doll head.Not even the Dome, the benevolent eye of God.God is God.She tries to imagine the crypt again, the beautiful statue behind the cracked Plexiglas.“Saint Wi,” she whispers, as if it’s the beginning of a prayer.And what does she want to pray for? She wants to think of one of her grandfather’s stories now—not the boy shot dead, not the driver eaten by Dusts, not the Dusts that may eat her.And then there it is, a story.There was an Italian festival every summer, her grandfather told her.There were teacups so big you could sit in them and spin, and games you could play and possibly win a goldfish in a plastic bag filled with water.The fish looked magnified when they circled the bloated plastic bags, larger and then smaller and then larger again.The ground swirls under the backhand of the wind, and Pressia doesn’t like it.She blinks instinctively, trying to clear her vision, but this only makes it cloudier.The swirl and the wind seem to be at odds with each other.And then Pressia sees a pair of eyes.Her gasp is caught in her throat.She pushes the button on the door handle to make the window buzz down.Nothing happens.She has to turn on the car itself.She grabs hold of the keys.She twists the keys back and forth.There are only some hollow clicks.She pushes the key hard and the engine comes to life, everything shivering with energy.The Dust is still roiling and churning.She pushes the button.The window retracts.The ashen wind whips in.She lifts the gun and cocks it.Her hands are shaking.She hesitates, then tries to take aim.The Dust drops to the earth.Gone again, but not far.Pressia is frozen.The ash whirls in the car.She’s poised to shoot, but she’s never fired a gun before.She isn’t an officer.She’s just a sixteen-year-old girl [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]